When not spending his days as an Oracle DBA, he is spending his other waking hours working on his books. We've talked over the years about the process, his inspirations, trials and tribulations as well as the different genres he is writing for. Well, the leading edge of his book series (yes, plural) has been released and I'm really enjoying them. Thought some here might as well if you are into military sci-fi with a bit of cyberpunk and transhumanism mixed in, set in what seems to me to be a disturbingly possible and not all that far off dystopian future. I went straight through the first two and am about halfway into the third. I know there's more coming as well as an urban fantasy set or two at the very least. These have been a labor of love for him for quite some time.

Specifically, the first series is the "Rimes Trilogy" and his Amazon author's page is here. The first one is free and he just put together a "boxed set" for those who enjoy the first and want to pick up the next two for a lower price. Pretty sure all other formats are out there as well, i.e. for the Nook or iBook fans.

Thanks for checking them out!

Nice! Tell your friend to keep on keepin' on. Even if he doesn't make a fortune from writing there is still a lot to be said for having folks buy and read your stuff. I'll check out his books and pass the link along to some folks over on FB.

I'm adding these to my wishlist, but ever since My Fair Lady hooked me up on BookBub, I've flooded my kindle app with way too many free books to read first. As a wannabe-pro writer, I have a question for you. What's your process for outlining/story prep for a book? For years, I've just sat down and tried to burn through a whole story end to end and almost invariably my short attention span combined with life combined with lack of personal discipline has resulted in me completing very little. So I'd be interested to know what you do to get through one of your books. Thanks!

Sorry I missed this! I'm terrible at doing outlines. I prefer to write by the seat of my pants. That being said, I find that I need a few notes to keep me on track. But I don't sit down and write a full 3 page outline. I know a lot of writers who won't consider writing until they have the entire book planned.

As far as getting through them? I guess that since it's my day job, it's just what I do. I used to get up, commute to Seattle, do IT crap for 8 hours, and then go home. Now I get up, write my ass off for a few hours, and then do whatever. The key is writing every day.

This bastard drops next weekish. I'm calling it a heavy metal, supernatural, thriller. My co-author and I spent about six months working on this.

For decades, the heavy metal band Damaged has brutalized record charts, sold out countless stadiums, and amassed enough money and fame to last ten lifetimes.

But it hadnít always been this easy. In the early days in the southern California scene, the band members struggled to make a name for themselves. Just as the bay area thrashers were about to implode, they received the deal of a lifetime.

An offer from Satan himself.

Wex, Michael, Seth, and Sunny have all lived like metal gods for years, but the Devil demands his due, and the price of failure may be their souls.

My pre-order of Xcom 2 unlocked. I played the first few missions, saw a few bugs like weird missing textures. A character picks up a body but the body isn't there - just looked odd. The controls are confusing as hell. For some sub menus you use a set of buttons, for other sub menus you your the arrow wheel thingy. Other than getting used to the funky controls, the game seems awesome. Will play more during the week assuming I get a project completed by Friday.

Well I burned out on this game fast. After about 25 hours I realized I'd seen just about everything the game had to offer. The only reason to keep playing was to buy a better ship. I got Elite Dangerous on the xbone to fill the space exploration void. I sincerely hope future patches add to NMS because it is absolutely amazing for a few dozen hours. Plus it crashes - a lot. At least I didn't lose any progress from crashes.

I got Elite Dangerous on the xbone to fill the space exploration void for now.

My main hobby, believe it or not, is writing. Writing is also my full-time job. Lots of reading, internet, not so many games as I used to play. I love high tech audio stuff and have a ridiculous headphone collection. I run off to do 4 or 5 conventions a year and they are always a blast. I'd do a convention every month if there were enough close to me.

I didn't know anything about this game until a few months ago. I used to be a pretty active gamer and kept up with all of the big titles. Now a days I kinda wait and see what looks cool. Over the last 9 months I've only played two games that kept my interest. Borderlands 2 and Fallout 4. I played both obsessively. Then I got No Man's Sky. See, I can understand how some would be underwhelmed by the game. The worlds get repetitive. The aliens slightly so. Flora and fauna are mostly just background graphics.

And yet. I can't stop playing the F'ing game. I'm completely obsessed with upgrading stuff, exploring, naming new systems, and following the path. I'm close to one of the big goals and it's all I can do to get my writing out of the way for the day (oh - writer by trade). I just want to go see one more new world. Dig up a huge pile of plutonium and sell it at a station. Save up enough to buy a sweet ship one of the aliens has on a space station. Have enough supplies to build another warp core. Hope I don't run out of material to power my stuff while I'm on a planet. Find one more monument and solve the puzzle. Locate one more signal station and find a suit upgrade. GAH! What gets is the sheer size. It's monstrously big (that's what she said), and I can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into the game. Again, I know it's not for everyone but it hits that survival/exploration itch with yardstick sized back scratcher.

The game does have a few serious issues. I've had about half a dozen crashes and that's a shame. I haven't run into any glitches other than getting lost in a huge cave for 20 minutes. I guess that's not really a glitch - just annoying. Anyway - just a few random thoughts on the game.

Late last year I quit my day job to write full time so I have a lot more time to work on books. It also means I can finally finish novels that have been on my back burner for a while. IMPACT EARTH: SYMBIOSIS is a project I've been working on for nearly 4 year and bonus--no zombies! This is a super hero/alien invasion mashup set on the streets of Seattle.

My friend Peter Clines (seriously, if you haven't read The Fold, Ex-Heroes, or 14 get on it!) helped me come up with the synopsis. My normal cover artist whose name is Eloise J. Knapp worked her magic once again and created an amazing cover. My beautiful girlfriend Katie Cord, a publisher herself, and owner of Evil Girlfriend Media, kept me centered and encouraged me to keep pushing into this new genre.

Long intro but here's the thing. There is this myth that writing is a solitary existence. I couldn't do this without help. I don't post here very often but I do tend to lurk on a daily basis. I enjoy the banter, game reviews, and stealing pictures from the "this time it's personal" picture thread. Anyway, if anyone wants a free copy of this book, just message me with your email address. No strings attached. Just to forewarn you, the book is Kindle exclusive so I only have .mobi files. Anyway here's the cover:

What happens when you hang out at a con with stoker nominated author Craig DiLouie and you both trick convince British horror author David Moody to join in your madness? This. This is what happens.

We're calling it: Band of Brothers meets Dead Snow.

I'm curious to hear how you did the multi-author writing. Did you each take a chapter and pass it back and forth for massaging, or did one do more outline and others flesh out details, or...?

We're writing separate books. I wrote the first novel. David Moody is working on the follow up called THE FRONT: RED DEVILS. Craig DiLouie will write the third then we'll start over again in that order. We're slated for 6 books total but there are plans for spinoffs as well. In a couple of months I'll write a novella called Night at Wereth: A Tale from The Front.

I have written with another author where we wrote alternating character/chapters. It was a blast.

I'm having a blast with Wasteland 2 Directors Cut on PS4. After a few hours I finally have the game down. I'm amazed that they ported such an old-school game to PS4 and it's this well done. I'd say I'm 10 hours in and things are really starting to get interesting.

I dusted off Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. The game runs surprisingly well on my Macbook Retina. I had to watch a few gameplay videos to get back into the game and remember all the movement commands.

After checking out for close to a year (thanks a lot, divorce...), the next book in the Z-Risen series arrives tomorrow. I'm throwing a little facebook party tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 PM PST so if you're in the virtual area, swing by. I'll give away audiobooks and other stuff.

Got this up and running on my macbook retina. Gorgeous game and holy crap I got sucked in, before I knew it I'd played a few hours last night and wasn't even paying attention to the time. I'd planned on spending 20 minutes looking at the pretty scenery. Phew, sleepy morning for me.

I'm seriously thinking about trying another character and paying more attention to the character creation screens. I kind of buzzed through them and created a big blue paladin. I'm intrigued by the possibility of playing an armor wearing wizard.

I purchased the Mac version and downloaded it yesterday. After I got to the first mission it hard crashed. Argh. Also, weirdly, all the bonus content that came with my version can't be found. I've tried to uncheck the DLC on Steam and check it again. It reports downloading but there's no making of video, manual, sound track, or map. Hoping this upcoming patch fixes these issues. Sadly I didn't get a chance to go back after creating my character, watching the intro movie, and getting my first small quest.